Business Thoughts

Make time

When I say make time, I don’t mean manufacture the currency of the Grim Reaper, that isn’t possible. We all get 86,400 seconds each day, no more, no less, and there is no carrying over unused seconds to the next day. Life is not a mobile phone contract where unused minutes or data can be taken forward to the next period. No what I mean is make space in your busy schedule for important stuff, important to you.

What planted the seed for this blog post was a comment during a networking event. It’s an event where we all know each other so instead of pitching for business we have a chat about success, problems, frustrations, concerns and anything else that people want to talk about. One of the participants, who pops in when she can, and often only for part of the meeting because she is so busy, normally talks about how busy and stressed she is. This time she was stressed because she had no work and now, she was going to have to work on a marketing plan to try an attract customers. The nature of the business is such that once a contract is complete her services are no longer needed by that particular company. She had been so busy working in the business she had not devoted any time to working on the business. Had she allocated say 10% of her time to gaining new customers, planning for new contracts to start when others were finishing, there would be a steady flow of work and overall, there would be more income than under her flat out then nothing approach; feast and famine, boom and bust – I’m sure you can think of more.

Big lesson – marketing is important all of the time. You might do less during some periods, but it is always important.

Many small business owners, and the self-employed, often fall into the trap of being too busy working in the business to have time to work on the business. Too often they have their noses to the grindstone and fail to spot that they are about to hit a brick wall, or worse fall, off a cliff. They fail to spot opportunities or to realise that the world has changed and what they are doing is not the most efficient way, or worse, what their customers really want.

Lego Serious Play

Recently I took time out of my business to attend a workshop facilitated by someone from the University of Exeter using the Lego Serious Play method. Building models to depict circumstances, thinking and plans helped me view things differently. I spotted a left field opportunity that had previously be out of my sightline. I don’t always have my nose to the grindstone; however, I am probably guilty of always looking in the same direction and am perhaps a little short-sighted. Just like in a pantomime that good idea might be behind you.

Take time out, do something different and improve your business performance.

Honesty Box

The seed of an idea for these business blogs has to grow and I nurture it until it is ready to harvest, then I prepare it so you can digest it. If you found the content useful please consider popping some money into the honesty box. Unlike buying eggs at the farm gate, you cannot put the cash in a box because you are reading this online. You can click on the Buy Me a Coffee link below which will take you to a page where by magic (nifty software) a small amount of money will disappear from your account and appear in mine. Don’t worry you are in control all the time. If the post wasn’t helpful, please leave a comment suggesting how it can be improved.

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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You don’t need to read business blogs.

The title might seem to be shooting myself in the foot; however, I believe honesty is important. If you keep reading you will find that reading blogs can be a good thing.

Reading business blogs is good for business, unfortunately it is not always your business that benefits and if you follow advice without thinking it will also usually be to your detriment. I searched on ‘business blogs’ and this was one of the results that search returned; “100 business blogs that you need to start reading”. What! Who has the time to follow one hundred blogs? At five minutes a blog that’s eight hours and twenty minutes – a whole day out of the week if they post weekly. Some I checked out posted daily.

The link took me to an article on the resources page of the Quickbooks website which was headed, “ Starting up – 100 business blogs that you need to start reading”. Now you might think Quickbooks would know what they are talking about, but I was thinking far from quick, more like bogged down in blogs. The article did recover some credibility when it said “No matter where you are in your business journey, there’s a business blog for you. Instead of scouring search engines for the best blogs, we compiled our picks for today’s 100 best business blogs” Ah, so when they say 100 business blogs you should start reading, they actually mean here is a list, pick a few. They very helpfully list them by category, Starting up, Sales, Marketing, etc.

The article is on the Quickbooks USA website, so the blogs recommended are American and tend to be prolific. This is the listing for one blog in the Marketing section: Appcues – “Their blog is loaded with hundreds of posts on the nuances of onboarding new customers, which every entrepreneur knows is a real challenge. Let Appcues fill you in on the nuts and bolts of making your customers happy and successful.” I think many small businesses wouldn’t have enough customers to need hundreds of nuanced onboarding techniques.

No, you don’t need to read business blogs, especially when you first start in business. It is a good idea to read some basic business guides. There are plenty available from trade bodies like the Federation of Small Businesses, the Government, or your bank. Then get on and work on your business.

The time for reading blogs is after you have had plenty of experiences, then you can blogs for inspiration, getting confirmation you are going in the right direction, having a different perspective and for firing up the creative process. One of the 100 blogs, James Clear’s Blog, has a post about this, drawing on the small, but exceptionally good 1965 book, A Technique for Producing Ideas which says:

“creative thinking is not about generating something new from a blank slate, but rather about taking what is already present and combining those bits and pieces in a way that has not been done previously”

So, you combine your experience with stuff in blogs and hey presto up pop some great new ideas.

There are some useful articles on the James Clear website neatly arranged in the following categories.

Creativity
Decision making
Focus
Habits
Life Lessons
Motivation
Productivity
Self-improvement

Some of the articles, for example ‘For a More Creative Brain Follow These 5 Steps’, appear in more than one category. My favourite one so far is The Ultimate Productivity Hack is Saying No.

Honesty Box

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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IYMC

You probably have no idea what the title of this blog post means; that was the intention. Is Your Message Clear? (IYMC) This post is about how the thoughtless use of initialisations can have a negative impact on the impression you are trying to make or the message you are delivering. My post on 21^st March was in a similar vein dealing with acronyms, this post focusses on two letter initialisations. Think of it as reinforcement rather than repetition.

There are two recent examples that stand out. The first was during an international Zoom meeting. One of the attendees was referring to the challenges her business had faced at the beginning of coronavirus restrictions imposed in South Africa. She had just said that she was not very PC when her video froze. I was relieved that I was going to escape hearing some blunt inappropriate comments. Political Correctness has a bad reputation; however, I often find that when people say they are not very PC it is an excuse to say unpleasant things. Her video then restarted without any loss of content, so I heard “…literate. I struggled with the move to online meetings and having to get to grips with things like Zoom and Microsoft Teams”. I now felt sympathetic to her situation, picturing her stressed sitting in front of her Personal Computer. Had the video not restarted and we moved on to the next person I may have left that meeting with completely the wrong impression of her.

I could only think of three meanings of PC, the third being Police Constable. I did a little bit of research and was amazed to find there are 325 listed meanings. I should have been able to think of some of those: Parish Council, Privy Council, Public Convenience and Petty Cash.

The second example is from a few hours later during an online networking meeting based in the UK. A new attendee was giving his 1-minute presentation explaining what he did and that he was also setting up another business with a focus on training covering PM …. I have no idea what he said next as I was wondering whether he was going to only do the training in the afternoon or whether he had a different meaning of PM. Through my brain fog I heard him talk about Project Management, could that be what he meant by PM? I missed the rest of the of what he was saying as I was trying to remember if I had ever heard Project Management referred to as PM. I have not, but this sent me off thinking about the project management methodology PRINCE which was wonderfully renamed in a Civil Service acronym competition from PRINCE to PRINCE. I should explain that originally it meant PROMPT II IN the CCTA Environment after the competition it meant PRojects IN Controlled Environments. Civil Servants certainly know how to have fun. By the time I returned my attention back to the meeting he had finished speaking so I missed his message and have no idea what he did. My research discovered that there are 195 different meaning of PM and Project Management was not listed as one of them.

Hopefully, that illustrates the damage that careless use of initialisations can cause. If you want to know what PROMPT and CCTA (used above) stand for use GOOGLE, which is not an acronym. The origin of the name is however interesting.

Finally, a word of warning, do not use initials when talking to a farmer about Artificial Intelligence or a nurse about Public Relations, you may see them reaching for gloves.

Honesty Box

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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Is your efficiency effective?

In the interests of efficiency, I am keeping this post short; however, it will be effective.

Some definitions will start the process of deciding if your efficiency is effective.

Efficiency: noun – the state or quality of being efficient.

Efficient: adjective – working in a well-organized and competent way.

Effective: adjective – successful in producing a desired or intended result.

It’s entirely possible to work in a well organised and competent way without producing the desired result for all sorts of reasons. Bing Crosby sung about being busy; the first two and last two lines are particularly relevant.

We’re busy doin’ nothin’

Workin’ the whole day through

Never do, never do, never do have the time

Never do have the time

Being busy and being efficient isn’t the most important thing in business, being effective is. Being lazy and doing things in a very roundabout way will not generate great results, so busy and efficient are important, but they are trumped by effective.

To be effective (producing a desired result) obviously requires you to know what result you want and how to get there, and that is where things get tricky. You need to know what is important and what measures to use.

Here is a theoretical example: A meal delivery service launched having done plenty of research and found that the key elements customers wanted were consistently high-quality food and reliable delivery. Testing with customers showed that the meals rated highly for quality. The company invested in software to calculate the optimum route and sequence for deliveries. The delivery system was super-efficient. The drivers were happy, as they were paid per item delivered and could deliver lots of items in a day, and the customers received their meals on time. Initially everything went well then, the company started to loose customers. There were no complaints about quality, price or delivery and surveys show these were not issues. The company arranged some focus groups to see what was going on. “Your food is just as good as xxxxxx and so is the delivery, I prefer xxxxxx because Andre the driver always asks how I am, and we have a little chat”. The drive for efficiency had driven that ‘nice’ part of the customer experience out of the equation compromising effectiveness. Slack in the delivery process was a necessary element of providing an effective solution; happy customers.

Honesty Box

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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Is your thinking on point?

I have some great discussions on business topics during Wisdoms123 Chats, on Wednesday we considered the ‘Trolley Problem’, a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology. What has that got to do with business I hear you ask (or would do if it were not for the wonders of technology that allows you to read this hundreds of miles out of earshot). It has a lot to do with business, especially small businesses.

The essence of the problem is:

There is a runaway trolley barrelling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.

Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

The trolley problem has been the subject of many surveys in which about 90% of respondents have chosen to kill the one and save the five.

There is a variant involving a fat man:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by putting something very heavy in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man standing next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

Resistance to this course of action seems strong; when asked, a majority of people will approve of pulling the switch to save a net of four lives but will disapprove of pushing the fat man to save a net of four lives.

I wonder what an outside observer would think the man on the bridge should do, I imagine they will be much more for pushing the fat man off the bridge to save a net of four lives.

You can see that where you are, and what you are doing, affects the decisions you make; remote and pulling levers leads to one decision, up close and involved in the action (pushing the man off the bridge) results in a different decision and being an outsider observer with no ‘skin in the game’ provides another view.

Small business owners are so involved in the business that they often make decisions that are not optimal, working hard at stuff without producing great results. Sometimes they are so busy they do not see the problems; they do not lift their heads up and see what is coming down the track. Business is not a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology, if you want to succeed you are going to have to push the fat man off the bridge, metaphorically not literally, that is illegal. It can be useful to get the help of an outside observer who can take the emotion out of the decision making and view things differently.

Then:

“I’ve got a great product, I’m just not good at selling”

becomes

“I don’t really believe that my product is that great”

“I cannot afford to outsource time-draining admin tasks e.g., bookkeeping.”

becomes

“If I had extra time in the business I wouldn’t be able to generate much income, it would certainly be less than a bookkeeper earns” – Probably time to retrain as a bookkeeper.

Step away and be the observer watching the drama unfold on the bridge and you may be prepared to take some drastic action. Perhaps pushing the product you love off a hypothetical bridge because it doesn’t earn its keep. Or giving a few of your customers a shove because they are more trouble than they are worth; sales are vanity, it’s profit that matters. Some of your processes might need an elbow, often things are done because we like doing them or because we have always done them rather than because it’s the most efficient way.

Thought experiments can be very practical and profitable.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging has demonstrated that “personal” dilemmas (like pushing a man off a footbridge) preferentially engage brain regions associated with emotion, whereas “impersonal” dilemmas (like diverting the trolley by flipping a switch) preferentially engaged regions associated with controlled reasoning. Now I’m not suggesting we should all be like Mr Spock from Star Trek (devoid of emotion); however, I’m sure a preponderance of controlled reasoning is best in business, although not good for the fat man.

Honesty Box

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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Networking is about connecting

Networking done well is about connecting and that means active listening, finding common ground and building rapport. If you are not familiar with active listening, or not good at it, there is some useful information here. With active listening you will soon understand someone’s ‘map of the world’ and be able to meet them there. The following example should help.

I was on a networking meeting recently and it followed the normal pattern; about half the attendees mentally switched off after they had given their pitch and about half were listening to the others. As I was speaking, I noticed one person in particular nodding at some of the things I said, a physical sign that she was actively listening. I was therefore not surprised when, shortly after the meeting, she connected with me on LinkedIn and suggested a Zoom one-to-one. Once we had settled on a day and time, she came back with “Your Zoom or Mine?” Humour is a good way to build rapport.

When we had our online meeting, we soon established that a concern for the environment was the biggest thing we had in common. I explained that my approach was to try to influence how people thought about climate change and biodiversity loss, I was not one for direct action and was unsure whether some of Extinction Rebellion’s actions damaged the cause more than helped it. However, I do agree that some dramatic action was needed to wake up politicians and other world leaders who are sleepwalking into a climate change nightmare. She told me that her sister was a member of Extinction Rebellion and in the April 2019, London protest she had glued her breasts to the floor outside the Goldman Sachs office in Fleet Street. She said it in a tone, and with a look on her face, which said she admired her sister’s commitment to her beliefs, but was not keen on her tactics and all that was wrapped in sisterly love. We were both now on the same map of the world. I was also in awe of her sister. I don’t normally agree with sexual exploitation; however, on this occasion I couldn’t stop myself admiring how this spirited lady had used her assets to exploit gullible men, Sun readers. Climate change became a big story in the Sun “BOOBY TRAP Eco-warrior glues her BREASTS to the road in most bizarre Extinction Rebellion stunt yet”.

We continued chatting learning more about each other, her husband was keen on taking on big physical challenges so more common ground. I was able to suggest some useful contacts for her and after the meeting she sent me some helpful information. It was a productive and enjoyable meeting; she did not try to sell me anything and I did not try to sell her anything; however, I know our businesses will benefit from the connection.

Rather than sell, sell, sell and tell, tell, tell actively listen, build rapport, have great conversations and create beautiful networks.

Honesty Box

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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Less is more, more or less

Very often when I talk to new business owners and, more worryingly, established businesses owners about what the target market is for their products the answer is everyone. It’s nice if everyone buys what you are selling, but it is not a good idea to sell to everyone, one because that is a crowded market with lots of people trying to sell into it and two, believe me on this, not everyone wants your shiny new product or service.

If you are a crisp seller with this attitude it may be tempting to advertise in ‘Health & Fitness Nut Weekly’* due to its cheap rates and rocketing circulation figures, but sales will be disappointing. A high fat, high salt snack will not be appealing to goji berry munching fitness fanatics. If you are still convinced your product will be bought by everyone fine, I will not try to persuade you otherwise; however, I am absolutely convinced that you do not want to market to everyone. Marketing involves time and money so you will want to get the best return possible. Some people will buy more than others and some people will be sold to less by your competitors, so these are the people to target, and this is where segmentation, personas and less comes in. Think in terms of planting seeds in drills, or even singly in holes, rather than scattering them all over the place. Less seeds, but more harvestable plants.

Personas are a representation of the goals and behaviours of a hypothesized group of customers. They are not a single customer. Getting enough detail, but not too much is key. Georgina having two children, Imogen and Tarquin, driving a blue Volvo and owning a Bichon Frise, called Fluffy, might be starting to be too specific; however, differentiating between a lapdog or a larger breed might be useful and is that Volvo an estate or a sporty model and how old is it?

It is not about dreaming up a fictitious character, it is a personalised composite sketch of the information you know about segments of your target market. Creating one needs data and research. Start with some quantitative analysis of your customer database, this will at least give you some basic demographic information, buying frequency, order value and may indicate seasonal trends.

Next you need to fill in the gaps with some qualitative research and analysis. The best way to do that is to talk to customers and prospective customers. Radical and scary I know, but it will give you a wealth of useful information. You are then ready to build the persona or personas. When you have done that perform a reality check; do your products or services match what the personas would want or need.

Now comes the fun part – using the persona. You would be amazed how many people generate a persona, including a nice stock image, stick it on the wall then forget about it. Use it every time you generate anything aimed at a customer and make sure anyone (internal or external) who is writing copy, managing social media, etc. has a copy of each persona and understands them.

If you perform an internet search you will find plenty of information about creating personas and templates you can use. Some of it is good, some is not so good, just remember the principles above and that less is more until you have reach the optimum point then less is less. Oh and one last thing not everyone will be your customer.

Honesty Box

The seed of an idea for these business blogs has to grow and I nurture it until it is ready to harvest, then I prepare it so you can digest it. If you found it useful please consider popping some money into the honesty box. Unlike buying eggs at the farm gate you cannot put the cash in a box because you are reading this online. You can click on the Buy Me a Coffee link below which will take you to a page where by magic (nifty software) a small amount of money will disappear from your account and appear in mine. Don’t worry you are in control all the time. If the post wasn’t helpful please leave a comment suggesting how it can be improved.

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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* ‘Health & Fitness Nut Weekly’ – this is a fictitious publication

Are you guilty of not giving tuppence?

I actually mean two pence but that does not have the same heritage as tuppence. If you have a look at the ‘References in periodicals archive’ section of the page for tuppence under the Idioms tab on the Free Dictionary website, you will see what I mean (you may have to scroll down a bit).

Two pence is how much you save by using a three letter acronym (TLA) rather than saying the words in full. That figure is calculated on minimum wage, if you are fortunate enough to be on average wage, and who is because the figure is distorted by the obscene amount paid to some bosses, it is about six pence. What you lose is harder to value. To calculate the saving all I had to do was time myself saying three letter acronym and saying TLA deduct one from the other, do a bit of maths and I had a value. There is no doubt in my mind that acronyms tend to obfuscate rather than inform. Worse than that they neuter the message.

I spent a few years as a Compliance Officer in Financial Services and during that time TCF was an omnipresent acronym. Banks and other large financial services companies spent a lot of time ticking boxes to make sure they were TCF compliant, a requirement of the regulator, but paid little attention to what the initials stood for – Treating Customers Fairly (action, people, justice). You can see why the banks had to pay out lots of compensation due to the mis-selling scandals, where they didn’t treat customers fairly.

So, what has got me hot under the collar now. Today I listened to a Diversity and Inclusion Advisor talk about how equality, diversity and inclusion benefited companies. They quoted a Harvard Business Review article reporting on research that found multidisciplinary teams that combine the collective capabilities of women and men, people of different cultural heritage, and younger and older workers are 17% more likely to report that they are high performing, 20% more likely to say they make high-quality decisions, and 29% more likely to report behaving collaboratively. That is a misquote because the article was about how simply throwing a mix of people together doesn’t guarantee high performance; it requires inclusive leadership. Still equality, diversity and inclusion are a good thing, reducing it to ED & I or more commonly EDI is not a good thing.

If you look under the ‘Acronyms’ tab on the Free Dictionary you will find 46 different meanings for EDI. The most commonly used meaning is Electronic Data Interchange with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion being some way down the list. If it is important say it in full and appreciate the richness of the words and the meanings they convey.

Equality – the state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.

Diversity – variety, a range of different things or people.

Inclusion – the action or state of including or of being included within a group.

ED & I could be anything, even a hospital department. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion is about rights, fairness, people, groups, richness.

If it is important say it.

If you like what I say you can buy me a coffee if you want to.

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Networking is like owning a dog

It’s said that eyes are the window to the soul; it’s hard to make eye contact during online networking so we cannot see into people’s souls; however, the screen does give us a window to their minds.

I was on a meeting the other day and one of the attendees, after giving his one-minute pitch, could be seen looking to one side and concentrating on what I assume was another screen and typing away. He was so intent on what was on his other screen that had I said “Hey Mr xxx you are a complete idiot” he would not have heard. When he gave his presentation, I thought oh he might be able to help my friend’s businesses. When I witnessed his behaviour during the rest of the meeting, I realised that he was only interested in helping himself and had no interest in others.

That was perhaps the most extreme example I have seen, unfortunately there have been many more times when I have seen similar, but less extreme behaviour, people switching off when others are speaking; how arrogant to expect them to listen to you and then not having the common decency to listen to them. People constantly checking their phones is also a bugbear, by all means use your mobile to connect with someone who is in the meeting on LinkedIn, but don’t spend all your time focused on your mobile rather than on the people talking.

Words are only part of communication; actions are also important. During an online networking meeting you are seen for a lot longer than you are heard, make sure you don’t sabotage what you said by what you do.

Just like a dog is for life not just Christmas, networking is for the whole session not just your pitch.

I wonder when we go back to physical networking whether that guy will get his laptop out and start working after he has given his one-minute pitch.

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www.trailrunningman.com

Two powerful business tools

I’m going to tell you about two business tools that, if used wisely, will revolutionize your business and your life. They are free. If you like them feel free to buy me a coffee, or better still a beer, after lockdown is over.

On Friday I attended, as usual, a breakfast networking event, unfortunately virtually. It is a little different from the normal networking where people give their sales pitch, then mentally switch off or play with their phones while others give their pitch, before mentally turning off or playing with their phones. We all know each other at that meeting so talk about our week, problems and any highlights. One woman talked about how busy she was and how at some point in time she hopes she can get some sort of work/life balance. This has been a constant theme since just after the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Someone suggested a local business consultant could help her identify how she could get her business running better and perhaps identify significant time saving opportunities. Several people agreed with the usefulness of this suggestion and then provided testimonials for the person recommended. I could tell by the set of the woman’s jaw that this suggestion would not be taken up. I think some people want, or need, to be busy and to think the world treats them badly.

Work/life balance is a state of mind. Use the thought of that woman in the networking meeting as a spanner to adjust the work/life balance in your mind. If that doesn’t work use the thought of the heart attack or stroke you are storing up, or missing your children growing up and possibly getting divorced as a hammer to crack that tough nut.

Earlier in the week I attended another networking event and decided not to play the sales pitch game. Instead, I told people to Google Trailrunningman to find out what I do and then proceeded to promote things that two other people are doing. The first person is an ultrarunner, runs a successful small business employing several people and writes poetry. I was promoting her poetry book; I am a fellow writer, although not a poet. The second person is an aspiring ultrarunner, planning to tackle a tough event in May to raise money for a local hospice. I was promoting his fundraising efforts. He is a busy sales and presentation coach and has two podcast series which are regularly updated. The first is business focused and the other is a series of interviews with runners about how to train for ultramarathons and what motivates them. Both busy people who find time to put in the extensive training required to run an ultramarathon. They have something in common with people who say they do not have time to run; they all have exactly the same 24 hours in a day to fit everything in. Unless you are living in extreme poverty what we do with our time is a matter of choice.

So, if you think you haven’t got time to exercise, enjoy nature, learn a language, write poetry, paint or whatever else you yearn to do use the thought of those two runners as a screwdriver to adjust your time allocation dial.

Talking of screwdrivers, I’d be just as happy if you bought me a cocktail rather than a coffee or a beer.

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